In another thread we're talking about the hypothesis that men and women tend to react differently when a fruit fly, gnat, bee or other insect drops into our wine glass: Men usually flick it out and go on drinking. Women dispose of the glass.

Is this gender stereotyping accurate? Let's find out! Please select the poll choice that best represents your attitude, and then join in a discussion with details of your experiences. Here's an essay I wrote on this topic, from a Wine Advisor article back in 2001.

At the moment we have 14% of males and 14% of females voting contrary to the gender norm. Interesting. I wonder if the same applies to the 30-seconds-on-the-ground rule? (or whatever length of time it is supposed to be) K Story, glad you draw the line at cockroaches.

JC (NC) wrote:At the moment we have 14% of males and 14% of females voting contrary to the gender norm. Interesting. I wonder if the same applies to the 30-seconds-on-the-ground rule? (or whatever length of time it is supposed to be) K Story, glad you draw the line at cockroaches.

Roaches just creep me out for some reason, always have. Most other bugs don't bother me. Centipedes are kind of gross, not sure what I'd do if one of those ended up in my glass. As for the "dirty" aspect that everyone seems most bothered by; I'm one of those people who thinks that a certain amount of exposure to germs is good - keeps your system on its toes and makes you more likely to be able to fight off sicknesses caused by a lot of these germs. I think we've all seen the news specials where they go around a city swabbing various things that we come into contact with frequently, and we realize there's tons of "nasty" stuff all over everything. Unless you're constantly washing your hands, you're going to ingest some pretty disgusting germs. So I figure, what's a few more from the fruit fly going to hurt?

As for food hitting the ground, I subscribe to the 10 second rule...

Poor JC, she's not going to want to share a table at Dino's w/ me now

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. ~John Galt

I voted maybe and bet if a lot of you thought about it you would also. If I am drinking Yellow Tail (God forbid), out it goes. If I am drinking '61 Lafite I would take a spoon, get the fly and 1/100th of an ounce below him (just in case he pooped) throw it out and then proceed to drink the wine. We are most likely all somewhere in the middle. Out goes all OZ, SA, CF, and oaky wines plus anything less than 4 years old. I use the spoon on all wines over 10 years plus all 1st Growths. Would have to think about the wines not fitting any of these catagories. It also depends on wether this is my first glass or my 5th. Probably get more fly friendly the more I drink.

The logic of your question has merit but no bearing, I'm afraid, on us who vote no. It's the knowledge that it was in there: bugs are dirrty and repulsive so now the wine they swam in is dirty and repulsive.

What usually happens at our house is that if the bug goes into my glass, Bob switches glasses with me.

Is it serendipity or intentional that this poll appears right on the heels of the posting about the antibacterial aspects of wine? As recently reported, “Exposure to wine had a persistent antibacterial effect,” the authors wrote in their study, detailed in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Just for the record, I voted maybe. It really depends on how much of what kind of wine was in my glass at the time.

As a former Marine, I've picked flies, fruit flies, and other critters out of my glass of wine, flicked them across the room and still enjoyed the wine. Cockroaches and spiders are in a different category.

During the summer, my house attracts enough Drosophila for me to start my own full-time genetics lab. If I weren't willing to share my evening meal glass of wine with a few fruit flies, I'd never be able to drink anything.

Fruit flies (Drosophila spp.) are a different matter. If you eat fresh, organic fruit, you are consuming Drosophila maggots by the hundreds. It can't be helped--they are ubiquitous on fresh, unsprayed fruit. As occasional suicide victims in the wine glass, the adult fruit flies are unwelcome guests, but not unclean.

Seems to me one of the rules for consuming bugs is that smooth bodied bugs are O.K., but hairy ones are not. That said, if a bug appears in my wine glass I just scoop him/her/it out and continue drinking.